


Fellow Pegasus

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen, warning for body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 12:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: In the hell of the warehouse on Pier 13, Nightdust finds a friend.





	Fellow Pegasus

From inside his cage, Nightdust could hear the sea. But it sounded wrong. There was no sound of the waves crashing against rocks. No sound of the wind blowing across the land and bending grass and flowers alike. He couldn't even smell the sea, not really. It smelled damp in here, but like bad damp things. There was the expected tang of urine from bad drainage and not enough cleaning, and the stink of rotting hay. Some of the horses had hoof-rot, even some from Nightdust's own herd. The thought of it now made him shift his hooves, trying to find clean, dry hay on which to rest his hooves. His coat prickled from lack of grooming, and he knew that his mane and tail were tangled messes.

The humans had given up on him. The thin one had yelled a lot and ordered the fat one to put him down, and Nightdust had stood his ground, waiting for the prick of the needle that would end his miserable existence. He'd fought, once. But not anymore. He was tired of fighting. It was easier to go along with what the humans wanted, and put up with the pain of the injections sending their poison through him. They made his heart race, and his hooves shift restlessly, and he trembled for hours afterwards.

But, when the fat man had picked up a different needle and approached Nightdust, the brave Welsh pony had felt a sudden burst of bravery. He'd put up a fight, rearing and pawing at the air, trying to bring his hooves down on the fat man or the thin one. The needle had fallen from the fat man's hand as he'd jumped away in terror, and Nightdust had crushed it under his hoof. Then, he'd snorted and stepped towards the fat man. There had been more yelling, and Nightdust had been injected with something else and put on a treadmill.

He'd run for hours, until his hooves had slipped beneath him and he'd slid backwards off the treadmill and onto the cold, damp warehouse floor. He'd panted, trembling as he lay there. He hadn't wanted to get up, but the white-coated humans had jabbed him with painful sticks that had sent pain through him, and he'd finally managed to get up, neighing and snapping at the sticks. He'd been backed back into his cage, and he'd turned around with the intention of bucking the humans in the face, but his hind hooves had collided with the door.

He stood in that cage now, snorting and neighing to remind the humans that he was there.

"Oh, do shut up," a voice murmured, and Nightdust heard something shuffling in the cage behind him. He tried to turn around to see who had spoken, but then something slammed into his cage. It was the thin man's fist, and he was scowling at the pony. Nightdust flattened his ears and stomped his hoof on the ground.

"Shut up!" the thin man snapped, and Nightdust saw light flashing off something before something stabbed into his neck. Nightdust tried to struggle, but he suddenly couldn't stand. With a weary neigh, he collapsed to his knees again, and rolled onto his side as darkness overcame him.

Nightdust awoke to find himself in the middle of the warehouse. But he couldn't move, his legs tied to poles on either side of him and a rope tied around his middle, binding him to rails. There was rope looped around his mouth, too, to keep his head down and prevent him from biting. But he pinned his ears back and snorted angrily at the humans that milled around him.

"Ah good, you're awake," said the thin man. Nightdust wished that he could trample the man. But he could only struggle and snort. "Now now, don't try to escape. I would have paralysed you, but I need to be able to see how you move after this." Nightdust wondered what it was. The man was holding a needle holding another kind of liquid, this one a bright silver colour. It seemed to glow, and Nightdust tried to jerk his neck away. But he couldn't. The man laughed and stabbed the needle into Nightdust's neck, depressing the plunger, and-

The pain was unlike anything else Nightdust had experienced here. It felt like fire flowed through his veins, searing his flesh, and he squealed and tried desperately to pull away. The pain seemed to centre on his back and sides, and then it settled into his bones. Nightdust's hooves finally slipped out of the binds as he ignored the pain and ripped the ropes, taking away a good deal of skin, and he reared up against the pain. The rope around his middle slipped further down his body with the movement. There was a weight on his back, too, but he couldn't get it off, and it felt connected to him in a way that a rider didn't. He twisted his neck around, and managed to glimpse something limp and wet and black stretched out from both of his sides. It looked like a bird.

But the pain was too much, and Nightdust collapsed against the ropes. The one around his middle dug into his stomach, and he sagged. There was more yelling, but Nightdust couldn't make sense of it. He heard the flapping of wings as he passed into darkness again.

Nightdust was still in pain when he awoke. He was back in his cage, and he sneezed as the smell of blood assaulted his nose. The thing on his back moved, and he craned his neck around to see. He moved something that he'd never moved before, and the thing on his back spread out from his side. A wing. He looked, and found one on the other side, too. They were as inky black as his coat, and covered in blood. And they hurt and itched, but Nightdust didn't dare try to touch them. He neighed mournfully, the sound echoed by the other prisoners. And then, as he fully woke up, Nightdust neighed louder as the pain grew more intense once more. He reared, pawing at the air, and his neighs grew in pitch until they became screams.

"Shh, little one, it's alright," said the voice from before, and Nightdust quickly turned around to find another horse a little larger than him. His white chest would probably have looked glorious, once, but now it was brown with dirt and dust.

"What's happening to me? Who are you?" asked Nightdust. The horse in the cage behind him looked offended, pinning his ears back with a nicker.

"You are a pegasus now. You don't recognise me?" asked the other horse.

"A what? And no," said Nightdust. "You aren't from my herd, nor are you one of the horses from the mainland. Or if you are, you have never been to South Hoof."

"I am Concorde, a Soul Steed and a famous dressage horse," said Concorde. "I was great, back in the day. But then, I was captured by the dastardly agents of evil." He nickered again, stamping a hoof.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Nightdust. Concorde snorted.

"Well, we may as well talk about more current matters, then," said Concorde. "Though... I have to ask, have you heard anything about a young woman called Anne von Blyssen?"

"No," said Nightdust. Concorde lowered his head, and something moved down his sides.

"I didn't think so," said Concorde. "She is my rider, but she has been lost for a very long time now. I cannot hear her or feel her. I fear the worst."

"I have lost my rider too," said Nightdust. "Madison. She tried to save me, but it did not end well. I thought that she was dead when the thin, angry man pushed her into the water, but she came here one day. I hope that she managed to escape when the white-coated humans went after her."

"I envy you," said Concorde. "Well, no, not really. Why should I envy a wild pony? Especially one who was turned into a pegasus by the most painful method." Nightdust stared at him blankly.

"Speak Jorvegian, please," said Nightdust. Concorde blew, making it sound like a sigh, and tossed his scraggly white mane.

"A winged horse is called a pegasus," said Concorde, lifting his wings up for Nightdust to see. They were tattered and in bad need of grooming, little sores near the bones still oozing blood. "The humans, as you call them, extracted blood from me and ripped out some of my feathers in order to create a mixture that would turn another horse into a pegasus. I gained these wings by magic, because I am the Soul Steed of the Soul Rider of the Sun. But you, my friend..." He shook his head, nickering sadly. "You had to suffer in order to gain your wings." He tucked his wings back to his sides, a white feather fluttering to the ground. Nightdust could see that the floor of Concorde's cage was littered with grey and white feathers, like a bird's nest.

"If you were a famous dressage horse," said Nightdust, "I know enough about humans to know that a pegasus would not have gone unnoticed."

"Alas, my wings were not always visible," said Concorde. "It was better that way. I could groom them, and make them disappear if I so chose. I usually only showed them when I was with my rider and her mate, or her friends. But my first captors, the agents of darkness, carved runes into my skin and made it so that I could not hide my wings. Or perhaps it is simply that I cannot hide them without the power of my rider."

"Why don't you groom them now?" asked Nightdust.

"Why aren't you grooming your own wings?" asked Concorde. "Apart from not knowing how, of course. But I will teach you, in time."

"They hurt," said Nightdust.

"I'd imagine that they would," said Concorde. "They are overly-sensitive from the transformation. Mine were too, when I first got them. When my rider first touched them, I threw her off and bolted." Nightdust snorted, nickering in amusement at the thought of this prim and proper horse throwing his equally prim and proper rider. "It was not one of my finer moments."

"Will you teach me how to fly?" asked Nightdust. "Madison said that she wanted to fly to the moon. I never expected to be able to do that for her."

"Of course," said Concorde. "You will need some wing exercises first, though, and I'm sure that our captors will try to give them to you. Not that it will go very well. What do non-winged beings know about wings?"

"As much a horse knows about being a fish," said Nightdust.

"Exactly," said Concorde. "You will probably like flying, you know."

"Is it like galloping?" asked Nightdust. "Or jumping?"

"That, and so much more," said Concorde, looking wistfully out of the cage. "There is nothing quite like soaring up among the clouds, or making a beautiful silhouette against the stars while your rider curls her fingers in your mane and laughs." He trailed off and sank down to his knees. "I miss her."

"I miss Madison too," said Nightdust.

"I don't mean to belittle your bond with your rider, but Anne was something different," said Concorde. "I made her more powerful, and she, in turn, completed me."

"Well, I don't know about the magic thing, but I can talk to Madison like I can talk to another horse," said Nightdust. At that, Concorde raised his head.

"Really?" asked Concorde.

"Yes," said Nightdust. "It's our little secret. Her family would never believe her anyway, though."

"Fascinating," said Concorde. "There are already four Soul Riders, unless- but no, I'd know, surely I'd know if she was dead."

"We don't all have to be special," said Nightdust. "I'm content to just be a wild pony."

"You remind me of my rider's mate's Soul Steed," said Concorde. "He was a wild pony."

"Somehow, I feel that we are completely different," said Nightdust.

"You do share some similarities," said Concorde. "But for the most part, yes, you two are completely different. He is the colour of gold, where you are black as night."

"But the two of us have a lot in common," said Nightdust. "We both want to get out of here and reunite with our riders. Only I also want to get my herd out."

"And we are both pegasi now," said Concorde. "Oh, I am so glad to find a kindred spirit in this awful place!" Nightdust swished his tail in happiness, and his wings shifted on his back again. Hopefully, Concorde would be able to teach him how to use and care for them properly. And, at the very least, Nightdust would have someone to talk to while he waited for Madison to come and rescue him.


End file.
